Museo delle Streghe Janua

Janua, Benevento's Museum of the Witches, explores the local folklore of the janare, female figures associated in legend with nocturnal gatherings beneath a walnut tree. The museum is housed in Palazzo Paolo V, a Renaissance civic building on Corso Garibaldi.

Why it matters

The janare tradition is closely connected with Benevento's cultural identity. Janua presents it as local folklore and popular culture, alongside the practices and stories through which the legend has been remembered and reinterpreted.

What to notice

The museum's theme brings together accounts of the janare, their reputed rites and remedies, and the walnut-tree gathering central to the legend. Its setting adds a civic-historical layer: Palazzo Paolo V was built as the town hall, the domus universitatis, around 1598, with its design attributed to Giovanni Fontana.

Context and history

The building later served as a council hall and theatre and underwent restoration in the 1990s. Janua occupies its ground floor. The janare and their gatherings belong to Benevento's folklore; the walnut tree's precise historical location is uncertain.